Album Review: Miniature Tigers – Fortress

Miniature Tigers – Fortress
Modern Art Records: 2010

Miniature Tigers starts a surprisingly amiable fortress (Yes, my musical comrades, I went there) of an album with a sickly sweet tonality that welcomes the listener to an untethered plane of aural freedom. If you are new to Miniature Tigers, do not mistake them for just another indie band from Phoenix, Az. They are not your run of the mill trying-too-hard, independent-want-to-be bands. With casual vocals and a simultaneously clean and jaded feeling “Mansion of Misery” leads us into a far more carefree “Rock & Roll Mountain Troll”. Fortress is a very lyric-centric album eschewing generic love songs of our era for far more mentally invigorating fare.

“Dark Tower” brings a more solemn element to the table with a heavier choral feeling guaranteed to make the most polo-shirt-wearing “bro” feel introspective. With “Gold Skull”, Fortress returns its previous comfortable and laid-back nature. “Bullfighter Jacket” follows up “Gold Skull” with some euphoric refrains and more lyrical bliss.

Fortress continues at the comfortable pace, maintaining a very consistent sound throughout. Perhaps I’m getting caught up in it, but it’s just a fantastic album, and whether you’re feeling glum or glad it will complement your mood. At the risk of sounding like a stereotypically broken record (if only they were still as ubiquitous as the colloquialism that references them) but the lyrics are utterly fantastic in both their clean flow and their quirky charm. “Japanese Woman” embodies this quirkiness most clearly, detailing a carefree story utilizing Miniature Tiger’s wavering (but not in the obnoxious coffee-shop band kind of way) vocals. Fortress is one of the few truly adaptable albums when it comes to the end-game listener experience.

I implore you: buy the album, ignore Pitchfork’s characteristically nose-in-the-air score of 6.4 and simply enjoy some great music before the summer season comes to an inevitable end.

4.5 out of 5